How the Board Develops and Reviews IEMT Standards – The British Board of Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT)

GOVERNANCE & ACCOUNTABILITY

The published responsibilities, sources and review arrangements behind IEMT professional standards.

An account of the arrangements described in the Board’s remit and the Association’s published policies.

The Board’s remit

The British Board of IEMT supports standards, accountability and public protection within the Association’s voluntary professional framework. Its published remit includes advice on competence, ethical conduct, scope, safeguarding and decisions affecting the voluntary register.

The Board is not a government body or statutory regulator. Its professional role operates through the Association’s membership, certification and register arrangements. It cannot exercise statutory enforcement powers or replace the responsibilities of other authorities.

Who is responsible for what

Body or role	Published responsibility
British Board of IEMT	Core training, technical and assessment standards; approval of trainers and programmes; support for consistent interpretation and professional oversight.
Association for IEMT Practitioners	Publication of professional policies; administration of assessment, membership, certification records and practitioner-directory eligibility.
Approved trainers and assessors	Delivery and assessment against published requirements, clear feedback and management of relevant conflicts of interest.
Complaints Officer	Receipt and investigation of complaints, with serious matters progressing through the published referral route.

The published basis for standards

The Standards of Competence describe the capabilities expected in actual practice: knowledge, technical delivery, judgement, consent, communication, records, outcomes and professional conduct. The Scope of Practice Policy defines the limits within which those capabilities are exercised.

The accreditation policy connects the standards to assessment. Candidates are assessed against published criteria, and further evidence or learning may be required where competence has not yet been demonstrated.

The policy index identifies current documents. It states that the current web version applies where it differs from an older downloadable document. Readers should therefore check the live policy when a decision depends on a requirement.

Version dates and review

The published Standards of Competence identify their effective date, revision date, version and scheduled review. At the source check for this page, the current version is 2.0, revised on 3 August 2026, with review scheduled for 1 December 2027.

These dates make the document’s status visible. A scheduled review date is not a statement that every requirement remains unchanged until that date; practitioners should check the current published version when it is relevant to their work.

Locate the current policy

Check its status and dates

Apply it to the relevant decision

Recheck when guidance changes

This sequence is a reading guide for using the published documents. It is not presented as an internal Board approval procedure.

Evidence and fair interpretation

The Board’s published working principles emphasise fairness, impartiality and proportionality, informed by available evidence, professional standards and procedural fairness.

The competence standards distinguish IEMT models from validated diagnoses and require accurate descriptions of the evidence. The accreditation policy similarly requires assessment against published criteria and identifies conflict-of-interest and appeal arrangements.

The public documents describe responsibilities and review commitments. They do not provide a complete account of every internal drafting, consultation or approval step. This page does not attribute unpublished processes or meetings to the Board.

How serious complaints reach the Board

The Association’s Complaints Officer is the first point of contact and investigates complaints. Where an investigation identifies a serious matter potentially capable of being upheld, the report passes to the Director, Andrew T. Austin. The Director then refers the matter to the Board for advice and appropriate action within the voluntary framework.

The Board does not receive or investigate complaints at first instance. The published complaints information explains the applicable route and the limits of the Board’s powers.

Finding the authoritative requirement

Use the current policy itself for an operational requirement, the accreditation policy for assessment and certification arrangements, and the Board’s remit for its governance role. Explanatory reference pages help readers understand those documents but do not silently amend them.

An enquiry about the interpretation or currency of a standard should identify the document and provision concerned. This makes it possible to distinguish a question about an existing requirement from a proposal for a future change.